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Your breath is laboured. The sound is one of enormous struggle. Air is entering your body through an oxygen tube in your nose. Your arms are covered in sores and tape, where multiple IV's have been inserted. Vitamins and fluids are being pumped into your unconscious frame. Everything but what you really need and which could save your life, blood.

The screens are blinking and displaying numbers that represent the chances of your survival. We've beed told by doctors that your hemoglobin levels are critically low and that you are in need of a blood transfusion, but as per your wishes no blood has invaded your body.

You are a member of Kingdom Hall, a Jehovah's Witness, and it is against your principles and the principles of your congregation. Your father and brother carry cards in their wallets that say NO BLOOD in bold red letters. They nobly show them to the doctor, as he states that your chances of making it are extremely low. Your card hasn't been found, but your family knows it is what you would want. If you could speak for yourself. The doctor asks questions. He has never heard of people refusing blood before. Then he explains that they will do everything they can, but they aren't sure if any of their efforts will be effective in saving you. They have never dealt with a case like yours before.

Your liver is failing, which is apparent due to the yellowish hue of your skin. An enema has been inserted rectally in order to flush some of the toxins that could be accumulating in your brain, causing extreme confusion and comatose-like symptoms. Alcohol is the cause of your hospital stay, but loneliness and depression are to blame.

Your sons found you in your apartment in a state of complete incapacitation. Your rabbit was running amok in his own filth. Piles of white fur covered the floor. Your fridge and kitchen were full of uneaten takeout orders, mouldering and infested with fruit flies. You had soiled your bed and nightclothes., even going as far as shitting yourself. Empty bottles of vodka were strewn across the apartment. When the manager of your building unlocked the door for the EMTs they couldn't put you on the stretcher because you were so weak. You surely hadn't eaten, maybe even moved in days. Both your boys saw you in that state. A sight I am sure they will never forget.

My fiancé, your second son, ran across the street to get you some food so that you'd have enough energy to even be placed on the stretcher. As they waited, one of the paramedics started washing dishes, throwing our garbage and moping the floors. A gesture so humane, so considerate that is cracks me open. It reminds me of the time I watched firefighters put oxygen masks on cats that had been rescued for a burning apartment. The cats were likely already dead by that point. Seeing their small unconscious bodied laying in a row, while the firefighters tried to resuscitate them made me cry. It was beautiful and tragic. Humanity cracked and spilled.

Seeing you now in your hospital gown, thin blanket covering the unrhythmic rise and fall of your chest, I don't know how you could recover. The flame has been blown out, it seems to me. I know that it is you laying there, but it is also somehow not you. Your children, however, are as real as ever, weeping for you. I can see my partner vividly, sitting in a corner by the window. His head is in his hands. He is wearing a yellow hospital gown. The light on the wall is illuminating his hunched back like a spotlight. Your only daughter is by your side stroking your hand and face, periodically lifting her glasses to wipe away her tears. Your eldest, paces the hospital corridors, unable to be still in the sudden inevitability of the loss of you. The bearer of their lives, withering before them.

Time passes. We walk to the food court. We go pick up documents and some of your belongings. We place your favourite photo of your mother at your bedside. We wait for news from the doctors. Sometimes as we wait, we laugh. It feels strange and wrong to laugh, but even when everything feels as if it's one the verge of collapse, things are still funny. And so we do laugh, despite it all.

You open your eyes and say your children's name once more. We all breathe an uncertain sigh of something like relief. You get better, you actually do. You even live to celebrate your son's 31st birthday, even to celebrate your own. We have faith and hope again. We make plans as we had before your sudden illness, to move your bed and furniture into our spare bedroom. We rent the U-Haul, but something goes wrong with the booking. It's a long weekend and the doors are locked. Nobody is working, so we make plans to move your things tomorrow.

But of course, tomorrow comes and they find blood in your stool, an internal bleed. Your precious blood, seeping into the interstitial space instead of through your veins. And so you die. After everything, you still die. Do you know your dog barked uncontrollably miles away in the middle of the night at the exact time you drifted and left this world?